Hairowdale and Other Discomfitures
by OdinAllSpanker
Summary: Gimli enjoys braiding the hair of his companions, whether it's a nervous habit before battle or a deed before a coronation. Although no one would ever admit it, Gimli's fashion sense may bring more embarrassment than joy.
1. Chapter 1

A gust of unexpected wind carrying a grim hiss shudders forth from the ominous cave, spooking the two steeds that Legolas, Aragorn, and Gimli had taken to confront the Dead Men of Dunharrow. Legolas futilely lunges at the running horses, but they're already out of reach. Upon the sudden switch of position, however, something thumps against his back. He reaches behind his head to feel for the odd obstruction but his fingers get caught prematurely.

"Wait… What is this?" Legolas's fingers rove over the foreign design in his hair. An amorphous bulge trails between his shoulder blades, too bulky to be a braid. The feeling of something soft, like flower petals, only increases his confusion.

"Oh," sounds the quiet voice of an otherwise fierce dwarf. Legolas turns to regard Gimli, whose abnormally flushed face contrasts his red beard. His brow is creased and his eyes stare downward at his booted feet. Through his initial confusion, Legolas faintly registers that Gimli is embarrassed. "You don't like it," the dwarf says to the ground.

"No, I… What is it, exactly? He asks carefully.

"Well, occasionally before battle I get a bit… a bit jittery. So I have to concentrate on something and after riding behind you on the back of your horse for so long and gazing upon your silky blonde locks… I've never braided elf hair, and it looked so fine, and I still had a pocket full of blossoms from that stream we stopped at. I thought it would look nice, and I thought that maybe you'd like it," Gimli admits brusquely. He nervously glances up at Legolas, whose look of understanding belies his despair that Gimli had messed with his hair.

"I see. Gimli, you have my gratitude for this deed. I would very much like to see it for myself." Gimli's face breaks into a wild beam, eyes shining with pride. He eagerly draws his axe and holds it patiently behind Legolas's head. Upon peering into his own dagger at the reflection of his hair, Legolas's jaw drops.

"Oh, my," he whispers. His typically flowing tresses have been twisted and knotted into a complicated braid that Legolas does not recognize. Tufts of it are matted and stick out of the design gracelessly, webby-looking. Worse are the violet flowers jutting from the braid at odd intervals, stiffly catching the last desolate light of Harrowdale. The bumpy thicket of hair is tied off messily.

A shift of his dagger reveals Gimli's eyes, bright with mirth and anticipation, and it is with a bout of dread that Legolas accepts his sentencing—he will be enduring this hairdo for a while.

"It is quite lovely, my friend," he mutters, offering a smile to enforce his act. Gimli places his sword back in its scabbard and blushes once more, waving his hand dismissively.

"You really like it? Well, I suppose I won't mind doing it for you again." Legolas expertly suppresses a shiver and nods encouragingly.

"Definitely. If we walk away from this," he says, diverting the conversation to their imminent mission. Aragorn hides a smirk behind an unrestrained sheet of his own wild hair, but the look he gives Legolas is mocking enough.

"Don't fret, Aragorn! I will have to braid man hair, as well!"

That effectively douses Aragorn's humor.

**-Those kind enough to have reviewed my other stories harbor my eternal gratitude. Many thanks. **


	2. Chapter 2

Aragorn scowls at himself in the mirror, finally finding a reprieve from the amused stares of his people. He shouldn't have allowed Gimli to do his hair this morning.

It was bad enough that Gandalf had a difficult time setting the crown onto his head, straining to fit it around the lumpy mess of a hairstyle Gimli had fashioned him with. What was even worse were the barely-concealed smirks of his new subjects and a few less-than-tactful guffaws from the back of the crowd. He was so embarrassed that he nearly forgot to sing.

He tried to walk as softly as possible down the pathway, because every step brought with it the unmistakable _clink_ of metal against metal—his beads were clacking together.

Then it was Eowyn's look that made him want to melt into a beige stain on the pavement. Belying her straight face, her eyes shone with undeniable glee. He couldn't blame her—seeing the man who turned down her feelings look foolish before his kingdom was bound to make her a feel a little superior. He brushed it off.

Furthermore, Lord Elrond's reaction was absolutely mortifying. He wouldn't even make eye contact with the newly-crowned king of Gondor, and Aragorn could read the subtle elvish curses on his lips. Having just recently won over Elrond's favor, Aragorn silently wished that he was invisible and could crawl into a shadowy hole. Although the look he gave Elrond was meant to come off as repentant, he couldn't help but gaze jealously at his fine and proper hairdo.

Arwen's hesitance was palpable and she couldn't rip her eyes away from the ungodly mass atop Aragorn's head. Maybe she was questioning whether she chose right? Aragorn made sure to whisper in her ear that he would be taking down his hair as soon as possible, and her tension seemed to ebb. Still, Arwen couldn't look him in the eyes.

When he bowed to the Halflings, his face reddened at the partially-stifled giggles. Of course, he had given them a perfectly good view of his bedecked and ridiculous hair! After the agonizing endurance of that humility, he had finally found a moment's respite in his noble chambers.

_You should've told him no_, Aragorn reprimands himself, leering at the silly fashion Gimli had stuck him with. He truly had gone overboard on the beads. It looks almost as though someone had fashioned a hairnet made of chainmail around his head. He is very lucky that the coronation began too soon for Gimli to stick blossoms in his unfortunate, weaved hair.

This hairdo had lost him the respect of his to-be father-in-law, made him a joke amongst hobbits, a conversation topic between the castle's maids, yet he could only bring himself to be slightly irritated with his dwarf friend.

He recalls Gimli's toothy grin in the mirror, standing on a stool behind Aragorn as he laced his hair with too many heavy trinkets. Braiding is a custom amongst dwarves, and allowing another to braid one's hair is a sign of friendship. If this pleases Gimli, he can endure his embarrassment in silence.

"Lord Elrond is asking for you," says a familiar voice from the doorway. A glance over his shoulder reveals Legolas, his lips twisted up into an indulgent smirk. "Probably not to ask you for fashion advice."

He's just opening his mouth to reply when Gimli appears behind Legolas.

"Ah, there you are, Legolas! I've found these florets that will look most fierce tucked into your hair!" Gimli lifts a sweaty fist clenched around a clump of vivid red flowers to show him.

Gimli doesn't notice the elf's unusually bleached face.

**Reviews appreciated.**


	3. Chapter 3

**The idea for this chapter came from an especially funny review I received. Credit is deserved there. I'd say that the idea warranted a chapter of its own. **

Couriers with word of success had long since spread the news to every corner of Middle-Earth—goodness finally triumphed over the evils of Mordor. The Glittering Caves had erupted into celebration, work letting out early and dwarves flocking to taverns for rejoicing and drinking. This meant for Gloin, however, that his son would be waiting for him at the new monarchy of Minas Tirith.

The winding, white stone streets and halls of Minas Tirith are not of taste to the dwarf and his couple of traveling companions, as they much prefer hardy, enduring stone mountains. Nonetheless, Gloin brushes his disapproval aside and sets out to the castle in search for his son.

However, in the vast courtyard before the palace doors, the hairstyle of an elf catches his attention. The handiwork is undeniable: his son is somewhere around here, and has clearly spent some time with his hands in an elf's hair. Gloin huffs contemptuously, but can't help marveling at another demonstration of his son's skill. He has missed his presence at home, lamenting the lost mornings spent with Gimli braiding his hair.

Gimli has begun to get creative, if the braids on the blonde head before him are any indication. Indeed, the masses of thick braids bundled at random around his scalp are especially glamorous, with little blue blossoms poked in. The flowers trail a little way past his shoulders, although the previously long, silky strands have been bushed into the braided rolls atop his head. Gloin can't help but shake his head in disappointment, because the thin, delicate hair of elves has put this potential masterpiece to shame.

The blonde elf cocks an offensively neat eyebrow at him.

"Are you possibly a relation of Gimli's?" he asks in a voice that is too smooth and refined. Gloin notices a rather fearful look clouding the treehugger's eyes at the thought of Gimli.

"Aye. Don't happen to know where he got off to, do ye?"

"He should be in the Healer's Den. Just down that hall and around the right-hand corner," he says, gesticulating though the shut entrance of the castle. Gloin starts at the mention of his son being in an infirmary, but wastes no time in asking the lanky forest-dweller for details.

Gloin quickly bounds away and muscles through the colossal palace doors, his duo of dwarf companions at his heels. He dashes around the corner, shoulder scraping the edge in his haste to get to the Healing Den. In his immediate pain, he snarls in irritation at a little human girl that gets in his way. She yelps in fright, jumping out of his path. He's suddenly distracted, though, by the sight of his unmistakable destination. The Infirmary is impossible to miss with its wide, arching doorway.

Stumbling into the spacious, window-heavy hall, Gloin immediately hunts for the vibrant head of red hair belonging to his son, no doubt bearing a most trendy do.

"Gimli!" he hollers in distress, eyes darting about without seeing his son occupying one of the long infirmary beds. "Gimli! Gimli! Gimli!" he barks.

"Father!" The call is returned, and Gloin's head snaps around to locate his son. His search is satisfied, granted the sight of Gimli not in a hospital bed, but rather perched on the edge of an unconscious patient's mattress. He hunches over the young man, looking over his shoulder at the team of dwarves from The Glittering Caves. His hands are currently wound about the lengths of the sleeping human's hair, bulky digits obviously in the middle of twisting a new, complicated fashion. "What a surprise to see you here in the castle, come all the way from the Glittering Caves! I was wonderi—oh, my. I see you've been doing your own hair."

Gloin nods in shame, shuffling over to his son's side. "Hold these," Gimli tells him, shoving a fistful of white blossoms into his clutch. The stalks are moist from his clammy palm, and Gloin suspects that Gimli has been holding them for a while.

"What are ye doing here, son?" Gimli beams proudly, but does not look away from where his hands have resumed their complex patterns.

"Aragorn—King Aragorn, that is—suggested that I bring my skills to the Infirmary! He said I would brighten the lives of these sad, injured folk, and he's quite right!" he gloats mirthfully. Gloin glances at a thoroughly downtrodden soldier in the corner, staring pensively out a window as he sadly fingers the beaded braids in his hair.

"Aye, this gloomy place could use some lightening." Gimli grunts in concurrence, swiping a chunk of pale buds from the older dwarf. "You've been getting creative. I saw what ye did to an elf out there," he mutters lowly. Gimli ignores the chastising tone in his father's voice.

"Legolas fought beside me in many a battle. I am glad to braid his strange hair."

In fact, the elf in question abruptly comes puffing quite gracelessly into the Healing Den, face red and previously lovely hair dragged sloppily from its binds. Disheveled, small blue clots hang in disarray from his head, pulled out of place. He has clearly—and quite unsuccessfully—tried to forcefully take out his braids.

"Gimli!" he thunders, in a tone much unlike an elf. "There are bugs in these flowers!"


End file.
